Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule. Robert John Buckley
London before we can build a bridge. But rather a million times submit to expense and inconvenience than hand the country over to a set of thieves who'd sell us to-morrow. We're not such fools as ye take us for. Don't we know these heroes? And when we see them and Gladstone and Morley and Humbug Harcourt with his seventeen chins, all rowling together in Abraham's bosom (as ye may say)—Harcourt licking Harrington's boots, when only yesterday Tim was spittin' in his eye—we say to ourselves 'Wait yet awhile, my Boys, wait yet awhile.' But when ye've finished yer slavering and splathering, and when Tim Healy can find time to take his heel off Morley's neck, then, and not before, we'll have something to say to you.
"But you should call on my friend on the right. He is also a Home Ruler—like myself."
Number three had powerfully-developed opinions. He said—"Home Rule on Conservative lines is my ticket. We'll get it on no other. I console myself with that idea. Otherwise it would be a frightful business, and what would become of us, I cannot tell. But I do not believe that even Gladstone would be so insane as to give it us. I cannot believe that the middle class voters of England would stand by and see the corresponding class in this country exterminated. Home Rule as much as you like, if we had the right men. The very poorest peasants are becoming alive to the fact that under present circumstances the thing would never do for them. They want the right men, that is, men of money and character, to come forward. And I declare most solemnly, that I am convinced that the Irish people would fall into line, and see the bill thrown out with perfect quietude. Now the push has come, they really do not want Home Rule, and, what is more, they absolutely dread it, and I firmly believe that a general election at the present moment would send a majority of Unionists to power. The priests are working for life and death. They see that this is their best chance, perhaps their very last opportunity. I am a Catholic; but then I am a Parnellite, a Tory Parnellite. And I have no intention of bartering away my political freedom to my Church, which, in my opinion, should keep clear of politics. The clergy have now advised payment of rent, so that the Government may not be embarrassed at a very critical juncture. And the tenants are paying their rent, although the present period is one of great agricultural depression. Look at this: The Ulster farmers are terribly hard up, are complaining that they cannot pay. This is the Protestant province, where the priests have little scope. But in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, the people are paying the landlord. The word has gone round—pay the landlord, whomever else you don't pay! The oilcake man, the implement man, the shopkeeper, are not getting their dues, but notwithstanding the pinch of the present moment, the landlord (who knows all about it) is paid. And the priests in some cases are actually remitting the clerical dues to enable the small men to pay the rint. Pay the rint, say they, if you pledge your very boots, if you have to go to the gombeen man (money-lender), if you have almost to rob the Church. They want to get possession, they want to get power, they want to get Home Rule; and then they know that, as Scripture says, 'All these things shall be added unto them.' Let them once get the upper hand, and they can very soon recoup themselves.
"The priests are showing England their power, with a view to future good bargains. 'You see what we can do,' say they. Arrange the matter with us. We are the boys. The Reverend Father O'Codling is the man. Have no dealings, except such as are authorised by us, with the red-headed Tim Healy Short. The Clergy have only one idea; that is, of course, the predominance of their Church. Very natural, and, from their point of view, very proper. I find no fault with them, but I say their object hardly commends itself to my undivided admiration, and, being still friendly, we on this subject part company. I wish to let the priests down easy. They are mostly very good men, apart from politics. They are good customers to me, and they pay very promptly. They spend their money in the country, and I'd have no fault to find if they'd lave politics alone. Mind that owld Gladstone doesn't become a Papist all out. 'Twould be better for him, no doubt, and as the whole jing-bang that turned round with him before would no doubt still follow at his heels, we'd get a considerable quantity of converts, if we could say little about the quality. D'ye hear what that owld woman's singing?"
I listened with interest. The minstrelsy of Ireland seems to have drifted into the hands of the most unpoetical people in the green isle. The poor old creature walked very, very slowly along the gutter, ever and anon giving herself a suggestive twitch, which plainly indicated some cutaneous titillation—the South is a grazing country. This was all I heard—
Owld Oireland was Owld Oireland
Whin England was a pup.
Oireland will be Owld Oireland
Whin England's bur-r-sted up!
If my friends are right as to the change of feeling re Home Rule, the dear old lady was hardly up to date. But the great author of "Dirty Little England"—I judge of the author by the internal evidence of sentiment, style, and literary merit—certainly composed the above beautiful stanza in the sure and certain hope that the present bill would become law.
Number Three qualified his remarks on rent, when speaking of the County Clare. "There they embarrass the Government by refusing to pay, and by shooting people in the good old way, just at the most ticklish time." He said, "Clare has always been an exceptional county. Clare returned Daniel O'Connell, by him secured Catholic Emancipation, and from that time has called itself the premier county of Ireland. They are queer, unmanageable divils, are the Clare folks, and we are only divided from them by the Shannon. So the Kerry folks go mad sometimes by contagion. I should advise you to keep away from Clare. You might get a shot-hole put into you. Every visitor is noticed in those lonely regions, and the little country towns only serve to disseminate the arrival of a stranger to the rural districts. Suppose you walk five miles out of Ennis the day after you arrive there, I would wager a pound the first woman that sees you pass her cottage will say, 'That's the Englishman that Maureen O'Hagan said was staying at the Queen's Hotel.' The servants are regular spies, every one of them. I couldn't speak politics in my house because I've a Catholic nurse. Good bye, I hope ye won't get shot."
I thanked him for the interest expressed, but failed to share his nervousness. After having mingled with the Nationalist crowd that followed the Balfour column in the Dublin torchlight procession, after having escaped unhurt from the blazing Nationalists who swarm in the Royal Victoria Hotel, Cork, having walked down the Limerick entrance to the balmy Tipperary, a little shooting, more or less, is unworthy a moment's consideration. Besides which, my perpetual journeying and interviewing and scribbling have made me so thin that Captain Moonlight himself would be bound to miss. However, it is well to be prepared for the worst, so—Pax vobiscum, and away to County Clare.
Tralee (Co. Kerry), April 20th.
No. 12.—ENGLISH IGNORANCE AND IRISH PERVERSITY.ToC
